That Autumn
by MTVbabe11
Summary: Dean was exhausted. He didn't want his teacher to care about him. He just didn't have the time to do the assignment. He had a responsibilities. Oneshot, Dean in high school. Rated for language.


A/N: I know. I should be working on my Inhumanity story, which has been collecting dust for months. But I'm having some difficulty getting back into it, so I decided to write a oneshot to get me back into the Supernatural mood. It's not as fluid as I would like it to be. In fact, it seems to me like a random collection of a few different stories. But I hope you like it nonetheless. Reviews are welcomed and loved, no matter how bad.

_Assignment: Describe yourself__500 words min.__Due Monday._

Dean Winchester ran a hand through his short brown hair, until he found the scar he was looking for. It curved over his right ear. Last weekend had been hell. He had come home from the hunt and had collapsed onto the couch, his father's voice still ringing in his ears.

Madison Willard was collecting the papers. She was pretty, with those wide brown eyes and long soft hair. She stood in front of him, hand out.

"Don't have it," he muttered. He had such a headache.

She raised an eyebrow. "Ms. Hiller's gonna throw a fit."

"Ms. Hiller can shove it up her ass," Dean replied. She giggled but he couldn't even manage a smile. His hand left his hair and traveled down to his wrist. The bruise hurt to touch, and had turned a nasty yellow-blue color. He quickly tugged his sleeve down.

The clock was ticking _so slowly. _Ms. Hiller accepted the papers from Madison and flipped through them. "Kyle! You've decided to grace us with another one of your excellent papers," she said sarcastically. She held it up for the class to see—it was barely a half a page.

Oh, she was going to throw a fit alright.

Sure enough, her head snapped up when she reached the bottom of the stack. "Dean Winchester? Where's yours?"

"Sorry, Ms. H," he said with a shrug. He was out of excuses. He was too tired. There was a huge bandage wrapped around his left knee.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "See me after class."

The bell rung a few minutes later, but he trudged to the front of the room to meet Ms. Hiller's wrath. She pulled a chair out and put it in front of her desk.

"Dean. Sit down."

"You know, I have Trig next, and I know Mr. Abbott would really miss my presence—"

"Sit." Dean dropped down into the chair and she followed suit. "Let's talk."

"Okay."

"You got a hell of a bright mind there," Ms. Hiller began. "You're a fantastic writer—when you do the work. And that's the problem, most of the time you don't. You have a C- in this class, you know that?"

"A C's average," he replied with a shrug. Dad wouldn't care. There were more important matters at hand.

"But your so smart," she insisted. "I hate to see you wasting away. What's the problem? You look _exhausted._ To tell the truth, Dean, you look half dead."

"It was a rough weekend," Dean muttered. The headache was coming on again with swift, throbbing pain. Like two fists slamming into his skull. The gash on his knee was stinging.

"Why?" Dean stared at her in silence until she got that he wasn't talking. "I know that you've moved around a lot in the past—well, 12 years. A lot. I know it can be tough to stay focused—"

"You don't know anything," Dean interrupted.

Ms. Hiller stood up suddenly and swiftly shut the classroom door. "Enlighten me."

"It's nothing."

"How'd you spend your weekend?"

"My mom died a while ago, ok?" he snapped. "Dad was away…on buisiness..and I was watched Sam."

To his surprise, all she asked was, "Your brother—he doesn't go to this school, does he?"

"No," Dean said. "He's in eighth grade."

Ms. Hiller nodded thoughtfully. "Must be a lot of responsibility. My sons in seventh grade and he can be a real brat."

"Sam's not a brat," Dean replied instantly. "He's . . . he's my brother."

"Is he why you don't do assignments? Your dad goes away a lot and you pick up the slack?" Perfect. She had read his files. She knew his dad didn't have a steady job, she knew they lived in a crappy bedroom apartment, she knew everything available to her.

"Yeah," Dean said. "That's all it is."

"You know it's the start of junior year, Dean. Time to start thinking about college—time to start thinking about yourself," Ms. Hiller said as she leaned forward in her chair.

"I'm not going to college."

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. It wasn't an option in her mind. "Such a bright mind! Why not?"

"I already told you."

"Now Dean," she said sternly. "I know that you have a responsibility to your family, but—"

"You don't know shit!" Dean roared, leaping to his feet. Black spots rolled into his vision. "Didja know that I was hunting all weekend? Every day, every night, chasing those fucking hellhounds? Didja know that I haven't slept in days? That it was the anniversary of Mom's death last week, and Dad just drank and drank and said nothing? Didja know I _can't get it out of my mind? _Her, burning, on the ceiling, her dying—"

His voice was getting farther and farther away as the blackness etched forward, and suddenly Dean was falling.

He was awake, and he didn't know where he was.

Dean opened his eyes and took in the IV and mechanical bed quickly. The hospital. What? A plump nurse was walking past his room. ""Hey!" he called out. She turned around and entered his room.

"How are you feeling, dear?" she asked.

"Why am I here?"

It took her a second to remember. "You were admitted for dehydration and exhaustion, but there's a nasty gash on your knee that's been infected." Aw, shit. Dad was always telling him to clean and disinfect. How could he forget?

"What time is it?" he asked urgently.

"6:38," she replied. "I think your fathers been in the waiting room for 20 minutes. Do you want me to bring him in?"

"Yeah, okay." Dad was going to be pissed. And if they had examined if, if they had found the bruises that twisted his skin and the map of scrapes on him…

Dad came in. "They called me to tell me my son was in the hospital," he began slowly. The nurse crept out of the room. "_The hospital. _So I came running out here, and found out you were in here for dehyration?"

"I'm sorry," Dean muttered. "Guess I sorta wore myself down."

"Of all the things to go the hospital for," hid dad continued. "We've avoided taking you here after all kinds of crap so we wouldn't face the whole 'do you hit your kids?' shit. And you risk that and get in here because you forgot to take some water and head to bed an hour earlier?"

"There's an infection too," Dean said weakly. Dad whirled his hand back and slapped Dean. He just stared back at him. He barely felt it.

"They want to keep you in here overnight, but I'm takin' you out," Dad said as if the slap had never happened. Dean sighed. He sorta…he sorta wanted to stay the night. He'd have no responsibility, just time to lye in bed and do nothing. Rest.

But an hour later he was back home, in the apartment.

"You okay?" Sam asked. Sam was bent over the desk, a sheet of algebra equations in front of him. If 12(9-3X) 2x(4 x)30 then what is X? If you just keep pushing yourself and pushing yourself what happens?

"Course, Sammy." Sam ripped open a bag of pretzels and fished one out.

"Your teacher came by to pick me up from school. Ms. Siller or Hiller or something," Sam explained. He took a folded piece of paper out of his backpack and handed it to Dean. "She said you'd want this."

_Assignment: __Describe yourself. No word coun__t. No due date._

Dean sighed and stared at the blank lines that filled the page. No word limit and no due date. Alright. Maybe he would do the assignment, in his own way, in his own time.

The next day, Dean got to school early and headed straight for Ms. Hiller's room. He bumped into her in the hallway before her classroom.

"Ms. Hiller," he began with his signature charming smirk. "Yesterday when I was yelling---I said some, well some kind of weird stuff. But I delirious and not really thinking—well, thinking less then usual, if you know what I mean."

She stared at him for a moment. "Ok, Dean," she said in a tiny voice. "I hope you get yourself some rest. You need to take care of yourself too."

"I promise I will."

She tucked a strand of grey hair behind her ear. Why was she looking at him so strangely. "Uh, Ms. Hiller? You okay?"

"I'm sorry," she replied briskly. "It just makes me so sad. So many of your teachers have written you off as lazy. Do that assignment at some point okay?"

"I promise," Dean said again. "I really do."

She smiled and ruffled his hair. Then she drew her hand back quickly, as if she shocked. "I guess I'm just a mother at heart. Dear me. You better be at class today, Dean Winchester." Ms. Hiller walked away.

Dean raised his hand to his hair slowly. It had felt like his mom, for a minute. He almost felt normal. He watched her until she turned the corner, then sighed and leaned against the wall.

But Ms. Hiller wasn't his mother. His mother was dead.

Dean went down a floor and to the cafeteria, where his "friends" hung out in the morning. He spotted them at one of the tables and grabbed a seat.

"Hey, Dean," Matt said easily. Dean grunted in reply. "A pleasant person in the morning, as always."

Rick took off his headphones, and the heavy rock music poured of them. Dean began to relax again as the guitar solo flew through his ears. "Hey, man, your dads looking for you."

"_What?_"

"Your dads here," Rick repeated. He was already putting the headphones back on. "I think he went down to the office."

"See you guys," Dean said immediately as he stood. What could it be? A hunt? An emergency? Was Sam okay? He walked quickly through the halls, not wanting to keep his dad waiting.

He burst into the main office and saw his dad there. "Come on, we're leaving," his dad said.

"Why? Is Sam okay?" Dean quickly caught up with his father, who was already walking out of the office and the school.

"The hospital has too many questions. We're moving. Switching schools."

Dean stopped. "My friends—"

"You can call them."

Matt, Steve, Rick and Kyle would all still be in the cafeteria, talking about rock music and the retarded homework the teachers gave out. And what about Ms. Hiller?

"Where we moving to?" He got in the car.

"Don't know yet," Dad replied. "We just need to pick up Sam and pack up our stuff."

He started to drive, and Dean couldn't help but turn around and watch the school get farther and farther away for the last time.

_Ten years later._

Dean opened the closet door and began tossing papers this way and that. He knew he had saved it, he knew.

There was a dark blue folder on the top shelf. Was that it? He tried not to bring much with him when they moved, he didn't have any folders…

Dean reached up and brought it down. Yeah, there it was. Dean pulled the paper out. "Assignment," he read aloud softly, a small sad smile playing on his lips. "Describe yourself. No word count. No due date."

He folded the paper in half, grabbed the newspaper, and left the room. "Be back tonight!" he yelled to his father, where ever he was.

It took him two and a half hours to get to the cemetery. He took out the newspaper again and stared at Ms. Hiller's obituary.

By the time he had gotten to her grave, tears were stinging his eyes. "You really cared," he said slowly. "You were maybe my only teacher who cared."

She cared when he first moved, and she cared before he moved away again. She cared about what was wrong, and cared about what went right too. Like when he handed stuff in, wrinkled and messy and perfect all at the same time.

"I promised, Ms. Hiller," he choked out. "And I never break a promise."

He placed the paper down at her grave, an offering. Then he walked away, into the cold autumn day.

_Assignment: Describe yourself. No word count. No due date._

_Some guys are born with a baseball mitt on their hand and they spend their childhood mastering how to throw a curveball. Some guys, like my brother, are born with a book in their hand that weird, admirable desire to know everything. I was born with everything. I was born with the world._

_When I was four my word was destroyed.__ My mom died and my __dad died a little know__. I don't think I started talking again for a year, and I still don't think I've really starting talking yet._

_You kept telling me that I had to care for myself too. But the thing is, when I lost everything, something else was__ placed in my hand. My family. And if I don't take my responsibility seriously, if I don't squeeze my fist shut, they might slip out. I might lose them too. _

_I almost think I could just stop there. __That that's all there it to me—my dad and my little brother.__ But I like to think I'__m here too, somewhere. Only I never really thought about it until you gave me this assignment._

_Until then—until I figure out how to answer your question—I'm made up of my family. __My protective dad.__My pain in the ass Sam.__ And my mom too, where ever she is, watching me._

_I hope you understand now, Ms. Hiller. I hope you understand why I can't do grammar worksheets and essays on "The Great Gatsby." It's not that I don't want to. I just wasn't born with paper in my hand._

_I was born with everything, Ms. Hiller. And now…now…_


End file.
